


Stage Practice

by Mogseltof



Series: JazzWave Week 2020 [1]
Category: Transformers - All Media Types
Genre: (not actually gender swapped), Arguments, Body Modification, Gender as perceived by non gendered aliens, Holoforms (Transformers), Homesickness, Music, Music Styles, Other, Philosophical Differences, Sign Language, cross faction
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-12
Updated: 2020-10-12
Packaged: 2021-03-08 08:09:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,517
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26968774
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mogseltof/pseuds/Mogseltof
Summary: JazzWave week! Day 1 "Symphony"Jazz and Soundwave 'run into' each other at a human club andarguetalk about music while attempting to parse social norms, Cybertronian and American alike.
Relationships: Jazz/Soundwave (Transformers)
Series: JazzWave Week 2020 [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1968007
Comments: 8
Kudos: 47
Collections: Jazzwave Week 2020





	Stage Practice

There were still decent jazz clubs if you knew where to look. The little places underground that leaned into the aesthetic, where anyone could step up and have a go if they were willing and the music was loud and raw and the drinks were cheap--

Not that the drinks were important since Jazz couldn’t exactly drink them, but it was nice to know that unwitting suitors weren’t wasting  _ too _ much money in buying them. 

That was the other fun part, aside from the music. Jazz had been playing with holoform presentation since day one, and it was always fun to see what faces got what attention, especially seeings as it wasn’t like you could fit a whole car through the door and into the space. Parking outside and hacking the local network to listen in wasn’t the same as being in ‘person’, even if that was exactly what Jazz was doing in order to watch and keep the holoform on track. It was the principle of being in person. 

Tonight was a banner night-- _ six _ fancy little cocktails on the table next to ‘her’. Jazz kept a pleasant expression on the face of her holoform and made sure to point a winning smile at every guy (and one lady) who had bought them. The lady had stuck around for conversation, the only one not to take offence at Jazz ignoring the drink, and they’d quietly discussed the artists on stage before trading info on which clubs were any good. 

Someone dragged a chair over to sit next to her, and Jazz didn’t bother looking up. This happened sometimes. 

“I don’t know why you keep coming to these places when it puts that look on your face,” she drawled without looking over, watching them from the camera above the bar as she slowly stirred the cocktail using the little straw. 

Soundwave didn’t answer, but they never did. They also never really bothered making holoforms that matched any of the cultural rules around what gender presentation was supposed to ‘look like’. Tonight they were delightfully ambiguous as always, and had seemingly decided to match Jazz in colour for clothing and skin tone. The two of them could have been siblings to any outside observer. 

_ Where is your secondary transmitter? _ signed Soundwave, also not bothering to point their head in her direction. 

Jazz’s smile widened, knowing that she probably had several messages on her public band from them waiting for her to acknowledge. They’d done this before--Soundwave knew damn well she didn’t respond unless talked to ‘in person’ on her nights out. “That would be telling,” she said, tilting her head in their direction to show off the light reflection mimicry program she was running on the tinted glasses of her holoform. “Settle down and listen to the music, why don’tcha?”

_ This isn’t music, it’s noise, _ signed Soundwave without the slightest hint they were acknowledging her fancy code. 

Jazz pouted, one of her favourite facial expressions. “Oh we’re not having this argument again, binary boy,” she said, jabbing the straw at them. “There are plenty of clubs out here playing perfect program every--”

Soundwave cut her off with a dismissive hand gesture, actually looking at her with a cute little mirroring of her reflective program across their own visor. Little ‘anything you can do’ copycat, mused Jazz with no small fondness.  _ Too young as a movement here, _ Soundwave was signing, retreading the familiar argument.  _ None of them know how to layer it with enough or as neatly. The arrangements are worse than nursery rhymes, and usually jarring. _

“It’s because they still believe in performance as a skill,” said Jazz, shrugging with one shoulder to make the reflective sequins of her ‘top’ scatter light. Copy  _ that. _ “Stick to Soundcloud if it bothers you, you know I’m all about the raw response.”

Soundwave actually bothered to make a facial expression at that: disgust.  _ They ruin perfectly good note arrangements by speaking all over it. Organic throats produce noise too randomly-- _

“That’s kind of the idea,” said Jazz. “The ones that are trying to do it replicated perfect every time are more of what they call ‘classical’ style--”

Soundwave made the flat, dismissive gesture again, shaking their head.  _ Imperfections and degradations in the instrument mean every performance is slightly different. Human craftmanship makes them sound-- _

“Beautiful,” said Jazz. 

_ \--Amateur, _ finished Soundwave, ignoring her.  _ This is better. Almost deliberate. _

Jazz couldn’t help it and she laughed, grinning at them. “Almost deliberate,” she said, low and mocking. 

_ Music is the creation of a pattern to please and repeat, this is-- _

“Responsive,” said Jazz, shrugging again. “There is no note but the last and your answer to it.”

_ I cannot believe you named yourself after this style, _ signed Soundwave. 

“It was my favourite, back home,” said Jazz, dipping her head.  _ “I _ can’t believe you preferred normcore pop-program shit.”

_ Sound is an art, _ Soundwave shot back, staring her down with their holoform’s blank face like it was supposed to be intimidating.  _ Perfect program is a measure of skill. _

Jazz laughed again. “And this isn’t?”

_ Making the first noise you think of is clumsy, _ signed Soundwave, underscoring it with the flat gesture again. 

“It’s about being good enough that the first answer is the right one,” said Jazz laconically, putting more teeth into her smile. “What, never tempted to get a musical mod and try for yourself?”

Soundwave made the disgust expression again.  _ No. My body has been through enough. _

“I wanted them,” said Jazz, making Soundwave pause halfway to their next sign. “Had a guy willing to do them and everything. My frame’s a lil’ small, so I couldn’t get the big wind arrangements I wanted, but he reckoned he could do some cable arrays without affecting my ability to take alt too bad. Would’ve cost me legs in root, but hey, small sacrifice.”

Soundwave didn’t respond for a moment, and when they did:  _ Unsurprising. You are already a master of blowing hot air. _

Jazz cackled loudly, making one of the guys she’d blown off earlier give them a dark look from the bar. “You prefer the human way of making music in this instance, huh?”

_ Mastery should not be about limiting yourself, _ signed Soundwave, still watching her.  _ Or about pain. _

She couldn’t argue with that, so she didn’t. They finished out the set in silence, and as the bar around them shifted to the non-performance part of their evening, Soundwave stood and offered her their arm. They left together, human eyes on their backs. Women were definitely more fun to imitate, reflected Jazz, but attracted a little more attention. Good to account for in future.

The street outside was empty and they paused, having left the neutral ground. “Gonna kiss me goodnight?” asked Jazz, tossing her hair like so many girls in so many media clips. 

_ Where are you parked?  _ asked Soundwave, ignoring her fancy particle code tricks  _ again, _ always so rude. 

“That would be telling,” she said again, closing the short distance and connecting their holoforms with her fingers on their cheek. The interaction between hard lights was always strange, not quite a shadow of real physical contact, but Soundwave let her do it. “Let’s do this again sometime.”

_ Jazz, _ signed Soundwave, the movement strangely hesitant. 

“Yeah?” she said, mimicking the posture they’d adopted. 

_ Guiding principle: _ they signed slowly.  _ Our bodies are more than tools. _

“Yeah, guess we’ll agree to disagree on that one,” Jazz said and cancelled the holoform.

Back in his own frame his engine was already turning over as he started firing the commands to spin up his sensory arrays again. He kept his lights dark in case Soundwave’s hiding place was close by and he was looking out for something to give away Jazz’s position. They might agree on not bothering to try and fight each other in holo, but meeting in actuality didn’t have that kind of excuse, and he wasn’t interested in starting a fight tonight. 

As predicted there were several messages on his public band, Soundwave trying desperately not to communicate in front of the humans. Jazz actually quite liked Soundwave’s vocal mods, but it was pretty noticeable if you were pretending to be human. 

There was one message file that had only just come in though, audio format. Jazz hesitated a moment, then played it over his speakers. It was a song, perfect program, a pure Cybertronian pop genre piece like Jazz hadn’t heard in a very long time. It wasn’t an artist Jazz had listened to before; Soundwave’s signatures were all through it. Amateur and uncomplicated. 

An honest and earnest expression of skill. 

Jazz let it loop once before stripping the file of its metadata and saving it to a secure file string with his favourites. That done he went to dismiss the message interface and head back to the Ark, but he hesitated. It took a moment to dig through old recordings, but he found the song he was looking for, and sent it back across the band before closing it and pulling back out onto the road. Better than a kiss goodnight. 

**Author's Note:**

> Jazz: keeps to one language group to be polite.  
> Soundwave: takes words from everywhere and invents his own to be precise.
> 
> Okay, trying to take more of a 'low stress' approach to participation in this weeks so I'm limiting myself on how many fics I write for them. Also means I get to spend a little more time with each of the prompts :) See you again on day 7 :D


End file.
